Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows - Even in the Same Party

Boehner, Cantor and the Debt vs. Cuts vs. Taxes debate. Speaker John Boehner sees that the Democrats by virtue of the election results are largely in the driver's seat. Majority Leader of the House Eric Cantor does not wish to yield to the Presdient or the Dem minority. Despite GOP claims to the contrary, they voted oppositie to each other in the "Cliff" vote. Is this a GOP palace intrigue?  If Cantor were to somehow become Speaker, would he be able to yield power anymore effectively than Boehner in the face of the threatened unpopular massive cuts that many Republican congresspersons (including recent VP candidate Paul Ryan, who is far to the right on taxes) sought to avoid?

Full article from The Guardian here

In additon, Chris Christie verbally pummels the House speaker over failure to push through House 'Sandy' relief bill. 'That's why people hate Washington DC'  here

NOTE: Given the full fury in play in Congress over taxes, see LINCOLN for the political chicanery, strong arming and political warfare undertaken in an effort to end slavery.

2013: The Future Is Unwritten

Impossible to predict. Plan for the worst. Hope for the best. Dream a little dream. Joy lies more often in the potential than in the real. Whatever midnight or tomorrow or the day or the months after bring, best wishes for the new year from Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn.

On the Brink

2013 looks like a year of tax increases no matter what- whether we go over the fiscal cliff or not.

What the impact may be on working stiffs and HENRY (high earner not rich yet) is spelled out in this article and graphic in the Atlantic magazine http://m.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/12/this-is-how-much-your-taxes-will-rise-if-we-fall-off-the-fiscal-cliff/266696/?wpisrc=nl_wonk

The 'Django' Debate Unchained: Seeking a Post-Tarantino Society?

Does 'Django''s pop sensibility expand and prompt awareness of the reality of slavery in the USA and its after effects encouraging thought and discussion. Or does it trivialize this critical subject by focusing on violence. Why did "Inglorious Basterds" dealing with Holocaust retribution against the Nazis receive more universally positive support than 'Django' has received. Besides Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey the most interesting slavery related film I have seen and written about here previously is Kevin Wilmott's C.S.A. which provides an alternative view of history as though the Confederacy had won the Civil War. Tarantino is another view perhaps disturbing perhaps not everyone's cup of tea but certainly a film for the 21st century that deserves to be seen and talked about by all Americans. The US is not a post-racial society despite the election and reelection of President Obama. Perhaps that is why the discussion needs to continue.
--Tony Napoli, Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn

A view against Django from the LA Times -- "'Django' an unsettling experience for many blacks"
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-django-reax-2-20121228,0,1771716.story

NPR: Is 'Django' the Blackest Film Ever?

Revenge fantasy. Empowerment. Black power. I was watching Sophie's Choice the other night and in the scenes at the camps there were thousands of prisoners guarded by armed but much smaller numbers of Nazis. Why didn't they throw themselves into the breach and fight at the railroad disembarkation points? Many would have been killed but could the guards be overpowered ?

A slave owner in Django Unchained asks the same question: why don't the slaves just rise up and kill their masters ?

Django is violent, historic, bizarre, comic and expressing that unique Quentin Tarantino pop perspective that riffs on culture, history, race, and values through a prism that makes viewers wince at the violence, laugh at the ignorant slave owners and crackers, and at the same time force viewers to think- which side are you on?
Tony Napoli for Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn


NPR talks about Django, the reaction of some film makers, and whether Spike Lee, who is critical of director QuentinTarantino's work, could have made this movie. Transcript here http://www.npr.org/2012/12/28/168202846/is-em-django-unchained-em-the-blackest-film-ever

Merry Christmas!

Reconstruction and Crisis in Haiti as Redevelopment Falters Following 2010 Earthquake

World attention focused on Haiti following the earthquake on January 10, 2010. However, nearly three years after the initial resolve to bring relief and even advancement in housing and infrastructure, results are sorely lacking. As the NY Times reports in an article by Deborah Sontag, "This represents a marked deflation of the lofty ambitions that followed the disaster, when the world aspired not only to repair Haiti but to remake it completely. The new pragmatism signals an acknowledgment that despite billions of dollars spent — and billions more allocated for Haiti but unspent — rebuilding has barely begun and 357,785 Haitians still languish in 496 tent camps.

“When you look at things, you say, ‘Hell, almost three years later, where is the reconstruction?’ ” said Michèle Pierre-Louis, a former prime minister of Haiti. “If you ask what went right and what went wrong, the answer is, most everything went wrong. There needs to be some accountability for all that money."

NY Times article here http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/24/world/americas/in-aiding-quake-battered-haiti-lofty-hopes-and-hard-truths.html

DITHOB: The world moves on from crisis to crisis, at home and abroad, in Haiti as in the Rockaways, and for reasons based on the bootstrap individualism of advanced capitalism, or the history of poverty and colonialism on the west end of the island island of Hispaniola, the people wait and wait and wait...

When James Westerberg Came to Brooklyn: Iggy Pop in Bath Beach (Circa 1982)

..."An Italian-American roadie of Iggy’s suggested he move to Bensonhurst (“a Mafia neighborhood”) to get away from the temptations and high rents of Manhattan for a while, so he did. In a 2003 interview with MTV, in which he noted that very few people knew he’d lived there, his memories of Bath Beach gave a vivid and accurate picture of that area in the ‘80s:

"The intersection by my house had a Catholic Church, the police station, the pizzeria, and the corner where the dealers sold Quaaludes. I was recording an album [Zombie Birdhouse] for Chris Stein’s label, riding the subway out to sessions. Nobody in the neighborhood knew who I was. Then I played the Brooklyn Zoo that summer and all the hoodlums came up. This one guy, John, he was this handsome burglar. He was so impressed he said he’d steal me anything I’d like. I was like “No, thanks, that’s okay.”... from Dave Mandl's article in Flavorwire, full text here
Thanks, Neph!.

Tis the Season: The Ramones' "Merry Christmas I Don't Want to Fight Tonight"

Chuck Close On Art and Disabilities:“Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up for work.”

Last spring, we saw Chuck Close up close at The Armory Show on the West Side. The crowds literally parted as Mr. Close, in his high tech wheel chair, made his way through the gallery, with his uber-tall, sexy accomplice, stunning in dress  and appearance.  Mr. Close, who experienced learning disabilities earlier and physical ones later in life, clearly knows a lot about overcoming adversity. The New York Times published an interesting article about Mr. Close's meetings with high school students from Bridgeport, Connecticut at the Pace Gallery in NYC, and discussing art, life, and how disabilities may serve as a catalyst for achievement, and, in his case, artmaking.

Full article from the NY Times here

Chuck Close and students from Bridgeport, CT at the Pace Gallery

Photo from the NY Times by Kirsten Luce for The New York Times

Ad Absurdum Gloriam: Bob Dylan's 'Must Be Santa'

Bob Dylan+His Band+Nash Edgerton: What a Combo!

Don Henley and Bruce Hornsby: 'End of the Innocence'

Don Henley - The End Of The Innocence by jpdc11

Mourning Notes

This morning, my sister, an elementary school teacher in a Catholic school, texted me that the prayer chanted by Rabbi Praver at the memorial service last night moved her heart and soul.

There is something about Judaism and its liturgy-- some understanding of suffering, sorrow, nostalgia -- perhaps a desire to be reunited with the Almighty-- that never ceases to humble and amaze ..

I don't know if anyone will ever understand what motivates a person to kill the innocent.

Tragically, in many parts of the world violent deaths of children are just other versions of the same insanity that people live with all the time ..here in the US death happens to children in cities not on this scale but regularly where gun violence and mental illness by adults are visited upon children. When it is visited upon the enclaves of the comfortable then we really take notice.. Just don't know...
-Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn

"This dark, horrible world": A Mother's Grief in Connecticut

"It was early Sunday, the first time that Veronique Pozner had seen the boy’s body since he was shot to death in his first-grade classroom two days before. A sheet covered his body up to his neck, and a social worker had urged Ms. Pozner not to remove it. She obliged, but began to wail, alternately telling her son to leave this “dark, horrible world,” and beseeching him to come back.".....
More from Cara Buckley's moving article in the NY Times here: http://nyti.ms/UAX87B

Why Mass Murder?

One theory here http://www.academia.edu/1199492/Hegemonic_Masculinity_and_Mass_Murderers_in_the_United_States